Edel Coffey: By reclaiming our own time, we might just be able to claim little luxuries

Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

When we think of luxury, we tend to think of things that cost a lot of money — fancy hotels or spas, expensive cars and handbags, high thread counts, and higher price tags.

Generally, we equate luxury with extravagance and, for the most part, luxury is considered something that is out of the reach of most ordinary people.

But, last week, I had a lightning bolt moment that suddenly made me think of luxury from a different perspective.

A friend shared a post from an online personal growth expert called Alexandra Eidens (she’s big on Instagram).

The post questioned our ideas of what luxury really is and consisted of a short list of things Alexandra considered to be real luxuries.

As I read her list — which included things like a good night’s sleep, a slow morning, time for fun and play — I felt myself becoming almost emotional.

In fairness to me, I was reading this list early in the morning, sometime after 6am.

I know Alexandra would probably never have such awful phone hygiene as to be scrolling in bed at 6am, but I had been travelling all day for work the previous day, had unconsciously imbibed about five coffees, and had slept badly that night as a result.

So you can see why the idea of a “slow morning” or even a day nap (also on the list) made me a little weepy. But it wasn’t just that. It was the realisation that she was right.

Slow mornings, a good night’s sleep, time for fun and play really have become luxuries nowadays.

A slow morning feels about as attainable as building my own ice palace or dressing only in Chanel couture. How have such simple (and free) basic pleasures in life become so far out of reach?

I thought of a woman I know of who lives what other people might consider a life of luxury. She has a great career, four or five foreign holidays a year, expensive wardrobe, expensive hair, suspiciously great skin … but I also know that she doesn’t enjoy any of it.

She wants to slow down, travel less, reduce her work, and have a more easy-going life, but can’t seem to figure out how to stop, even though she can afford to financially.

She feels trapped on a spinning hamster wheel of her own making. While she has all of the luxuries that money can buy, she does not have slow mornings or time for fun and play in her life.

Maybe if she did, she’d be able to figure out how to hop off her wheel.

You see, one of the big positives of these real luxuries that Alexandra Eidens listed, is they’re self-perpetuating and cross-pollinating.

Once we introduce one of them into our lives, we immediately start reaping the benefits, which in turn allows us to introduce more of these real luxuries.

Think of what a slow morning can offer. Headspace, thinking time, perspective, which in turn allows us to be creative, brainstorm, and problem-solve.

Time to play and have fun clears the mind of stresses, and resets our brains so that they can easily find solutions to these stresses.

With our worries and stresses sorted, we can get a good night’s sleep and that, in turn, gives us the energy to tackle what challenges may arrive on any given day.

Alexandra Eidens’ list of real luxuries has stayed with me all week. It’s made me think about how I can begin to incorporate a few of them into my life. How can I have a slow morning, even if I need to do the school run?

Perhaps it’s just about getting up 20 minutes earlier or scheduling some me-time for when I get home from the drop-off. How can I schedule some time for fun?

OK, I hear how that sounds. Scheduled fun always makes me think of miserable Silicon Valley tech companies, enforcing Friday night socialising on their teams, but sometimes the way to make space for the things we want in our lives is to schedule it.

A lot of the time our lives can feel a bit like a cluttered wardrobe — full of nice items that we have collected over a lifetime, but don’t get to wear or enjoy because we have forgotten about them hidden away in the back of the wardrobe.

Our lives can be so crammed that they become chaotic, untidy, and exhausting, so we just keep doing the same old thing, grabbing the same outfit immediately to hand instead of asking ourselves: “What do I want to wear today? How do I want to feel?”

The real luxury that Eidens is talking about, of course, is time.

Free time is the overarching umbrella that makes all of these possible. By reclaiming our own time we might just be able to claim luxuries like slow mornings, time for fun and play, and a good night’s sleep.